009. Guilt Tripped
At Aquino High, the most petty revenge can start an avalanche.
I make a quick stop by my locker to gather my books for the evening, anxiously glancing around for Taylor as I straighten my binders on their shelf. The certificate is still folded neatly and tucked away in my backpack—I wouldn't dare bring it out in the open before it's strictly necessary.
"Hey, Erika."
I jump and whirl around, expecting to see Taylor but startled to find Liam standing behind me.
"Hi." My voice is shaking a little bit, and that alone seems like a full confession of my guilt. Biting my lip, I turn back to my locker and right a book that toppled sideways.
I can feel Liam's presence behind me, closer than I want him to be. Usually I wouldn't mind, but right now I'm on edge, as if just by Liam lingering nearby he can detect the nerves radiating off of me.
"What are you up to after school?" he asks.
I grab my calc book and slide it into my backpack before shutting my locker with my hip. "I'm waiting for Taylor," I tell him, pausing briefly to readjust the Post-It note affixed to my locker. It's a little crooked—someone must have put it that way, because I'm always certain that it's immaculately straight.
"Taylor?" he asks, but any other questions he has are interrupted by Taylor himself turning the corner and heading our way. I can tell Liam wants all the details, and I'm glad he's interrupted because I don't know how I'd explain all of this even if I wanted to.
"Ready, Erika?" Taylor asks once he's within earshot, nodding at Liam in acknowledgement. There's a brief second of tension, but it passes so quickly that I figure I imagined it.
Glancing back at my Post-It note, I straighten it one more time before saying, "Yeah. Let's go."
Taylor's eyes linger on the sticky note longer than they should, but he finally nods and starts back down the hallway. I smile at Liam before saying, "I'll text you later," and hurrying after Taylor.
We walk down the hallway in what could be considered amiable silence if I weren't so nervous about what's about to happen. When we're all the way down the stairs and Liam hasn't come after us, I figure it's safe to reach into my backpack for the certificate.
"Do you know what you're going to say to her?" I ask as I struggle to balance my backpack while unzipping it and continuing to walk.
In a rare show of kindness, Taylor reaches over and holds my bag for me. "Not really. I guess she deserves to know, but at the same time it's really upsetting news. Who knows? Maybe she'll know something we don't."
"Allison knows a lot of things we don't."
When he doesn't respond, I glance over at him and see that he has pursed his lips so that they're folded into a thick line.
As we keep walking and Taylor doesn't say anything else to me, I start to wonder if he and Allison are plotting behind my back. What if all of this is an elaborate scheme and they know exactly what's going on? Already I've wasted hours when I could be studying, planning and blackmailing for a result that may not even be desirable. The worst thing would be for me to be fooled again, especially by my own sister.
Still, Allison could never have known that I'd be cleaning out the attic, so she couldn't have possibly planted the certificate. With this and the resolution that I had to triumph dwelling in the back of my mind, I keep walking.
We reach the gym before I've strengthened my resolve, but because I don't want Taylor to see me afraid I hand him the certificate and shoot him and encouraging smile. His jaw is still set, the corners sharp like I remember them being the day Spencer and I caught him with Allison. The day that changed everything.
"Good luck," I tell him, and he nods in acknowledgement. The past is behind us. For now, we're on the same side.
As he walks away with his cell phone pressed against his ear, I readjust my backpack on my shoulders and slink around the corner. Hidden between a brick wall and a particularly large tree, I can overhear his conversation with my sister without being noticed.
"Allison?" He must still be talking on his cell phone, because I don't hear a reply. "It's Taylor. Can you come meet me by the back door of the gym? It's urgent. Don't bring anyone with you."
There's silence, and I figure he's hung up. Now, all there's left to do is wait.
I wish I could pace away my jittery nerves as I wait for my sister to show up, but then I'd risk giving away my hiding place. Instead I cross my arms and resorts to jiggling one of my legs, shifting my weight between the balls of my feet. The alleyway is completely deserted—either nobody frequents this path to the parking lot or most of the students have already left for the day.
After about five minutes, I hear the undeniable clacking of Allison's wedges on the pavement. "Taylor?" she calls shrilly. I know that if I could see her I'd witness her tucking blonde locks behind her ear. "Are you here?"
"Hey, Allison." I expect Taylor's voice to be kind but instead it's cold, nothing like how he spoke to me. "Come over here for a sec."
She approaches and stops in front of him, the muted sounds of her shoes halted abruptly.
"I'm going to show you something, and you can't freak out. Just stay calm and don't ask questions."
When I poke my head around the corner I see that her eyes are wide. She opens her mouth to say something but, heeding Taylor's warning, thinks the better of it and shuts it.
As Taylor reaches a hand into the front pocket of his jeans I hold my breath, because if anything's going to go wrong now is the time. Slowly, the folded-up certificate comes into sight. I exhale slowly in relief, but my pounding heart doesn't slow at all.
"Have you ever seen this?" he asks, producing the certificate and unfolding it.
He hands it to her and she skims it. I don't know what I expect, for her to start crying or protesting or yelling, but she does nothing of the sort. Instead, her face falls gradually, until she looks like she could be lifeless.
"Where did you get this?"
Her voice scares me: it's dull and monotone, like I've never heard her speak before. I lean further around the corner so that I can see Taylor—he's watching her with concern, too, his dark eyes never leaving hers.
"Your sister gave it to me," he says. "She thought we deserved to know."
When she opens her mouth to speak she chokes on her breath. I've never seen Allison so unlike herself, so spiritless. As her hollow eyes slowly lift to meet his, the first thought I have is What have I done?
"We're related," she murmurs, her voice scraping.
My heart has stopped pounding from nerves. Now all I feel is sickness, deep in my stomach. For a second I reason with myself that I never expected this to affect her this much, but then I realize: I did mean for her to be heartbroken. I actually willed my sister into a spiral of angst just so that I'd have a better chance at outdoing her in school. Never has petty revenge taken me this far. And never have I felt this revolted by what I have done.
"Allison." I can't see Taylor because my vision is swimming so much: all I can concentrate on is steadying myself against the back wall and focusing on how to breathe.
"Erika knows." I think now Allison might be crying. "She gave this to you?"
There's silence. Maybe Taylor's nodding. I don't really care anymore; I've lost interest in my part of this exchange.
"I need some time alone."
Finally I let myself look around the corner. Allison has turned away from Taylor, biting down on her lip to stop her tears. She's staring at the ground. I realize suddenly that my sister never looks down. She's always holding her chin high, her eyes just above normal sight line, like she's regal and unafraid. Now everything's wrong. I'm the one who's made everything wrong.
Taylor shoves the certificate back in his pocket, not bothering to fold it back neatly. His shoulders are hunched and when he glances up to meet my gaze, all he does is shake his head slightly.
He hates me for this. Does he think I'm enjoying myself?
Allison is hugging herself now, still staring at the ground. After what feels like forever, she lifts one leaden foot and begins to walk away. I'm still frozen to the ground for maybe a full minute after she's disappeared around the corner, paralyzed.
It turns out I don't have to move at all, because Taylor is the one who approaches me. "That went worse than I expected," he says, digging his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. "I guess you're happy, though."
I chew down on my lip, unsure how much I should tell him about how I'm feeling. If he knows how upset I am, he'll think I'm weak. And I can't be seen as weak, especially by him. "Yeah," I say distantly, staring at the spot where Allison stood just moments ago. "Good job."
He's shaking his head again. "I hope you're happy. I've done a lot of bad things, but this is the single worst thing I've done in my life."
"Taylor, I—"
Wordlessly, he pulls the certificate back out and shoves it at me. "Please put this back where you found it. And never let anybody else see it. Don't tell anybody about it. Please."
He's begging again. I realize that now I owe him, that obeying his wishes is the right thing to do. So I just nod and he passes me the paper, our fingers brushing. He pulls them back quickly, stuffs them in his pockets, and walks away.
I want to be able to leave just like he did, to go to my car and drive away and feel my guilt seeping away. But I can't. Somehow I'm still rooted to the same spot, as if my shoes are glued to my pavement. My limbs won't obey me.
In the distance, Spencer crosses the main pathway to the gym. It takes me a few seconds to realize that he's heading my direction, that maybe he saw everything that went down in the past five minutes.
"Can I see it?" he asks me once he's approached me.
I study him for a second: he looks genuinely curious, as if the certificate were just an everyday paper and not the artifact that had just changed Allison's life. Still, I don't know what else to do, so I pass it his way. He reads it, his dark eyebrows furrowed together until they're almost touching at the top of his crinkled nose. I want to be able to appreciate how good he looks in that moment, but I can't. Guilt is still eating away at my stomach like acid.
"You blackmailed Taylor into showing this to her just so you could get revenge?"
When I don't say anything, he presses, "Is this about what happened in calc class yesterday?"
"No! Yes. A little."
He just narrows his eyes at me, so I defend, "You don't know the whole story."
"What if I did?" he asks. His ice blue eyes are trapping me, scrutinizing my insides and maybe even my soul. "Would you tell me that you're worried that Allison beats you in everything, so you wanted to mess her up? Is that was this is about?"
I can't meet his eyes, so I yank back the certificate and stuff it into the outside pocket of my backpack. "Is it that obvious?"
"You know what, Erika? It is. I stood up for you in calc class yesterday, but maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe Grant was right. You can't stand being wrong and you can't stand being beaten."
"Neither can Allison!" I protest.
He crosses his arms, and suddenly I'm tiny compared to his gigantic, intimidating figure. "You're right," he says. "But I don't see her running around plotting for revenge. She's never taken it this far. What she did yesterday was one thing, but this is a whole new battlefield. I get that you're angry with her, but this?"
"Who are you? My father?"
Angry tears start to leak out of my eyes against my will, and I try to blink them back. I hate how easily I cry, how childlike I seem in front of him right now. My tears have never been something I've been able to control, and this weakness only makes me more angry with myself. The acid in my stomach intensifies.
"Of course I'm not your father," he says, and maybe he's noticed that I'm about to cry because his tone softens a little. "But I thought I knew you. The Erika I knew and loved would never have done this."
"You loved me?" My voice is tiny, barely a whisper, and I catch the lilt of hope at the end against my will.
"That was the wrong word. I meant I cared about you. We were something. We had something special, didn't we?"
I swipe at my eyes, smudging my eyeliner, and try to control my shaking hands. "Obviously we weren't special enough, because you didn't even love me."
"Erika, that's not the point right now. I don't want to talk about what happened last summer."
"Nobody wants to talk about it." More tears, falling one after the other in a parade of shame. "Maybe that's what's creating all of these problems. Maybe if we just talked, instead of running around acting like we don't even know each other, none of this would happen."
"Maybe," he says icily, "None of this would happen if some of us could control our need to always be on top."
It's a stab right at me, and it pierces straight in the heart. I want to sound angry, to punish him for everything he's done to me and everything he's doing now, but I'm crying too hard. What had started as silent tears are now sobs, sobs that I'm choking over. I grit my teeth to try and stop but find that I can't.
"Look, Erika," he says, extending a hand. It touches my arm, warming the skin. "I was starting to think that maybe we could forget about what happened last summer and start over. I wanted to give us a second chance. But I can't be with someone like you. You're different. Ruthless. And I can't deal with that."
"Then don't." My teeth are clenched, and they scrape against each other so that they screech a little.
"What?"
"Don't. Don't deal with me. Leave me alone. If you don't care to be involved, then pretend you don't know me. Pretend you never knew me, okay? Let me carry on with my own life. And don't come lecture me with your suddenly high morals as if I don't have a conscience of my own."
His grip on my arm tightens, but I shake it off. "Just go away," I snap. The tears are blinding them, so I reach up and swipe more of them away. It's a mistake: now I can see his concerned features clearly, the way his eyes are studying me and the way his mouth is folded into his frown. His lips—I just want to kiss them but I know I can't.
I expect him to fight a little longer but he doesn't; he just disappears wordlessly exactly as Taylor had. And I'm stuck there again, transfixed by my own pain. I don't know what to do—part of me wants to burn the certificate and part of me wants to run after Spencer and scream at him to go find Celia and leave me alone; another part is begging me to go apologize to everyone, to Spencer and Allison and even Taylor and plea for forgiveness. I'm so conflicted that I can't even decide whether I should walk to my car or wander the halls before I go home, so I just stand there and stare at the empty path in front of me.
I'm alone, completely and utterly. When the small voice in my head starts chanting I am Erika Soto, I am Erika Soto, I shout at it internally until it is silenced. Then there's just white noise in my mind, so that not even my own thoughts can distract me anymore.
It's Friday night. I figure I can't go home and wallow more in my guilt, but when I remember the party at Taylor's I'm only slightly consoled. I'll have to face everyone there, including Spencer. Spencer who asked me to go with him. Spencer who told me he loved me, even if he took it back. Spencer who admitted he had wanted to give me a second chance.
My tears had dried up temporarily but they start again, a fresh spurt from a fresh tear duct hidden somewhere deep in my eyes. These tears aren't the same as the ones I shed standing in calc class yesterday. These stem from the deepest hurt and sorrow, so that I can feel physical pain ripping my chest as I cry. I don't know what I should do so I just stand there and let it all go, not even caring who sees the powerful Erika Soto breaking down in a back pathway in school.
In Aquino High, the most petty revenge can start an avalanche. And right then, I don't know that anything will be left once the rubble clears.